Swarm Invaders
by wreckingduty
Summary: The Space Marines fight the first boss of Hero's Duty. Originally written on May 13, 2014.


[**Introduction:** This fanfic is based off of a Hero's Duty comic that appeared in one of Disney's Comic Zone magazines. The scenario's a little different and I gave it my own take, but the general idea is the same.

This is what I think the first boss of Hero's Duty could be, so it's kind of a prequel to my Beacon fanfic.]

Calhoun inspected her gun as the elevator climbed to the next level of the Tower. The ride to this level was one of the longer ones as the game prepared the Cy-Bug boss for the gamer.

This was one of the first real tests of the gamer's skill and determination. The run to the Tower was hectic and the following climb up several floors was full of Cy-Bug coming out of the woodwork, but the boss battles were another thing entirely.

The first boss was a piece of cake for the Space Marines, they could defeat it on their own without the gamer ever getting involved. But, that wasn't the point of the game. Even though they were on Easy mode, they weren't supposed to be holding the gamer's hand and skipping all the way through a war zone. They've already lost a few Marines so far, but that's just how the game went, especially for first-timers. Part of the challenge was to keep your teammates alive. Sure, you could beat the game without the Marines, but it was a lot harder that way.

The other Marines murmured among themselves, not talking loud enough to where the player could make out exactly what they were saying, it was just enough to give the longer-than-usual ride a little bit of atmosphere. They all knew what was coming, it was just a matter of seeing how the player was going to handle it.

There's a pleasant ding as the elevator arrives, the doors opening in on a completely darkened room. As scheduled, the FPS rolls on out, the Marines leaving one by one behind it and taking their positions. The red lights on their armor and guns are the only source of brightness for a few moments, until the silence is broken by a series of thuds.

The Marines play their parts well, calling out that they can't see a thing. Not until four green eyes come into view.

At first, it looks like a lone Cy-Bug, but it screeches, causing lights all around it to blink on, four, eight, twelve, sixteen, it's a lot more than just one or two Cy-Bugs, it's a whole swarm clustered together roughly in the shape of a giant Cy-Bug.

It's a neat trick of the programmers, a way to have something familiar and introduce something new to the gamer all in one. It's a swarm of Cy-Bugs like they've encountered previously, but it's the first time that they're on this scale. The rest of the bosses aren't so kind to spell things out nicely for the gamer, they're just simply large Cy-Bugs through and through.

Now that the jig is up, all the Cy-Bugs are screeching and buzzing, it's nearly disorientating, especially with the enemy indicator lights in the Marines' helmets marking each and every one as an enemy.

Right as the scene ends and control is restored back to the player, some of the Marines shout and open fire on the mass of bugs, then it's the gamer's turn to join in the fray.

As they pick off the bugs one by one, they're easy enemies, not the tougher kinds of Cy-Bugs that'll be present in later levels, the swarm shifts and moves to keep their same basic shape.

After a handful are killed, the group begins to retaliate, sending a wave of four bugs at a time to fly and attack the Space Marines. It's almost a little nod to the old 8-bit games, just like the ones that this company had used to make back in the 80s.

As the first group breaks off and heads towards the soldiers, a Cy-Bug with orange lights is briefly revealed in the center, before the other bugs move to cover its position once more.

Calhoun shouts out, "The orange Cy-Bug's controlling them! Kill it and they won't have anybody to take orders from!"

The FPS turns its guns towards the Cy-Bug mass, opening up fire towards the middle. The swarm screeches in pain, sending a wave of eight to attack the crew.

This amount is too many, the gamer has to regroup and focus on the incoming enemies. However, while they do a good job of being a temporary distraction, it still reduces the number of bugs in formation. It's looking less and less like a giant Cy-Bug now, the more that are killed, the more cluster around the commanding bug.

The battle continues on, with the orange Cy-Bug directing more and more of its troops towards its enemies. Finally, there's only six left, covering up the orange one entirely. This time, it's done a good job of keeping itself safe, in previous rounds a lucky or well placed shot has destroyed it as the battle began. Some of the gamers knew the levels quite well, so they knew how things went and could use the repetitive programming to their advantage. However, the nature of the Cy-Bugs still sometimes gave even the veterans a surprise or two.

Five, four, three, two, one, all the green Cy-Bugs are taken down, leaving the orange one alone. It looks around, then screeches loudly, trying to call for more bugs to protect it.

Calhoun roars out, "Kill it, quickly! Before the reinforcements get here!" It was a brief race against time, sometimes other Cy-Bugs made it and prolonged the battle. They couldn't leave this room until either the orange Cy-Bug died or the gamer got a Game Over and didn't insert any more quarters.

The FPS switches weapons, the gamer deciding to go with one of the heavier guns. It'd be able to deal more damage, but at a slower pace and demanding more reloads than most of the other weapons.

Their plan pays off, it only takes a few blasts from the grenade launcher and a few shots from the other Marines to kill the orange Cy-Bug in a burst of light and goo.

The room completely darkens once more as the source of light vanishes completely.

Calhoun claps the FPS on the back, "Good job, Rookie, but there's no time to rest, we've got more bugs to take down."

With that, she leads the way to the elevator, her and the Space Marines filing in, followed by the FPS. The next couple of levels will have a few more bugs than usual, the ones called in will stay where they were, having climbed down from higher floors or burst in from the outside. But, based on their performance, Calhoun thinks that this gamer will give them a pretty good run.


End file.
